Newzoo reveals 2022’s predicted numbers, and future growth

Newzoo this week released its final report of 2022, forecasting the final numbers of the games industry in 2022. The industry overall appears to have a slight decline this year, though Newzoo says it’s due to market correction. It also predicts a few numbers for 2023, though its numbers can change as 2022’s have.

The report reiterates Newzoo’s previously predicted numbers for the 2022 market. It predicts the 2022 market will generate $184.4 billion, a 4.3% decrease year-over-year. It also predicts mobile games will generate $92.2 billion, a 6.4% decrease. It’s reported both of these numbers before. Out of all the games markets, PC is the only one where it predicts growth, specifically in downloaded or physical titles.

Tom Wijman, Newzoo’s lead games analyst, said in a statement, “We see 2022 as a corrective year following two years of lockdown-fueled growth for the market. Looking back at our pre-pandemic forecast for the games market (from January 2020), revenues in 2020 and 2021 were much higher than we anticipated, while 2022 is slightly lower. This revised forecast may seem like a setback for the games market, but the sum of revenues generated from 2020 to 2022 is almost $43 billion higher than we originally forecasted pre-pandemic.”

The report also lists the top 10 games across all platforms, ranked by their monthly active user numbers. Out of all the games, the only 2022 title is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. The others were more evergreen titles like Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite.

Newzoo closed out the report with some predictions of the industry’s future growth. It predicts that in 2025, the games industry will generate $211.2 billion, while the mobile market it puts at $103.1 billion. It also predicts cloud gaming will grow to $8.2 billion, and it reiterated its prediction that the VR market will double by 2024.

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